I installed Mint 13 Maya on a P3 650Mhz with just 512mb RAM and it works just fine. I can now pass this to someone in the family for them to use; word processing, web browsing email etc and they'll be very happy.

I'm trying to install it on another machine with a similar spec but I am having a few issues. I'll need to check what is wrong but I'm hopeful of using it.

You listed the minimum requirements but is there a set of optimal requirements?

Or perhaps a set of things that users should avoid to prevent usability - such as a particular WiFi card or graphics card?

I noticed that an old graphics card can really drag down system performance.

Any recommendations on the use of SSD drives? Or flash drives? USB 3.0 is hard to find but you can get one reasonably cheap at MicroCenter.

I also noticed that, in my experience, that the cpu power is far more important than the memory. I had tried several distros in the past (AMD 64 4200+ with 3.5GB Ram) and most if not all ran the cpu near or at 100% but the memory wasn't even close to being used to capacity.

Personally I would choose an i7 (at a whopping $1,000 !) with 512MB ram over a P3 650 with 4GB ram.

Currently I have an i5 with 4gb ram but with installation problems I haven't been able to see what is being used.

What a bout dual/triple channel memory? Would that be 2 x 512MB ram @ dual channel? Or 2 x 256MB ram at dual channel?Will mint benefit from 8GB ram instead of 4GB ram? Or will there be no perceptible difference?

I have problems with 2GB on Mint, and it's not the system taking the ram, because after start-up system show 270MB taken, but when i open Skype, radiotray, and the most important a browser with 10 tabs, am out of ram. So it's impossible to use more than few tabs open on 2GB. The browsers are RAM eaters, not system.

Oyabunbaba wrote:I have problems with 2GB on Mint, and it's not the system taking the ram, because after start-up system show 270MB taken, but when i open Skype, radiotray, and the most important a browser with 10 tabs, am out of ram. So it's impossible to use more than few tabs open on 2GB. The browsers are RAM eaters, not system.

The old PC I run Mint13 on only has 2gig of ram and I have yet to see my ram usage exceed half that. I wonder whats going on?

I run Linux Mint 13 Mate on a 2 gb ram, 1 ghz dual core acer aspire a0722 netbook and have yet to have ram problems. I also boot with Windows installed (work) and it is more robust than Windows 7. I think the ram usage in Linux Mint is in fact better than Windows. I have a lot to learn about Linux but I am trying.

Both version of Mint 13 ran well from the USB - but when I installed along side Win 7 for dual boot, I get no boot option. I've run the Boot-Repair tool and that did not fix this problem. I had previously installed JoliCloud next to Windoze and it provided me the boot option.

MightyManfred wrote:Both version of Mint 13 ran well from the USB - but when I installed along side Win 7 for dual boot, I get no boot option. I've run the Boot-Repair tool and that did not fix this problem. I had previously installed JoliCloud next to Windoze and it provided me the boot option.

zolar1 wrote:I also noticed that, in my experience, that the cpu power is far more important than the memory. I had tried several distros in the past (AMD 64 4200+ with 3.5GB Ram) and most if not all ran the cpu near or at 100% but the memory wasn't even close to being used to capacity.

yes, but if you use ssd, to avoid wearing and extend the lifespan of the drive you have to run several writing processess (cache, logs, etc.) in memory, so memory is important.

It would be better a balance of memory/cpu, for example an i3 with 4 or 8gb ram.

I previously installed Mint onto a 8gb USB, but then the Update process couldn't be completed because it "ran out of space."

On a separate note, my understanding is that if, instead of traditional installation, a person uses an installer such as UNETbootin, the USB installation is supposedly compressed, similar to a Live CD, so it won't be as large as full-size onto hard drive. Is this correct? If so, what's the minimum size required for Live USB, with some persistence, to get updates and add Chromium and Tor browsers? Thanks.

For what it's worth, I run Mint 13 KDE edition on a single core Atom n455 netbook! Just 1GB of RAM and minimal everything.

By the way, in benchmarks the n455 processor clocks in *below* a slower clocked Pentium III.

And yet I run KDE quite happily. It's slow to start but runs fine after that. Obviously, I am not using the machine for game play or gut busting video editing but it's used in the white heat of a teaching evniornment where downdown is not an option and there is a deadline every hour!

The key is to turn off graphical effects in KDE. Everyone says that KDE is a monster when it comes to speed. That is only true if you enable all the eye candy. I switch it all off.

So far the Atom is serving me well! So you do not need that much to run 13 successfully. I must say that I started to feelt he load a bit with Mint 15 KDE but I think I hit a memory leak at one point. Having had to install 15 on a Lenonvo recently it appears that the latest updates fix some bugs I think I found.

Still, 13 does what I want right now - and the machine is LOADED with SW. Us teachers need access to everything at all times! I have a fortune in avoiding Windows.